Omens shows some return to form, but couldn’t hold a stiff one against the likes of Ashes Of The Wake, Sacrement or VII: Sturm und Drang and that’s not at all Cruz’s fault.

Heimdal has a more organic feel than its most recent predecessors, a less polished approach that gives it a rawer edge while remaining complex and adventurous. This more unrefined blackened aesthetic, though present throughout the album, is magnificently explored in 'Congelia', which delivers a constant and overwhelming flow.

Cracker Island is a perfectly good album made for an active audience larger and more diverse than most artistz could ever dream of having.

It takes several spins to fully comprehend the ambitious scope on display here as this is the kind of record that unravels the longer one ventures into its gorgeous textures, subtle progressive leanings and consistently clever lyricism.

As a guitar record, Pretty Years perhaps doesn’t reach the delirious heights of LOSE, but the melodies here are more consistently grounded in pop roots, however ripped and dusty they may appear. ... One of 2016’s best albums.

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is on an upward trajectory in terms of Halsey releasing quality music. By and by, Halsey may not have love, but her latest record is power.

Whereas Beatopia felt stuck between two different eras and styles, This Is How Tomorrow Moves takes the new ideas beabadoobee introduced on that record and fully fleshes them out with no reservations. As a result, it’s the most self-assured and downright enjoyable album she’s released in several years.

If Firepower was Judas Priest proving that they’ve still “got it”, Invincible Shield is them making sure no one else will steal their crown. Plenty of veteran classic metal acts are kicking around to this day, but none of them (not even Iron Maiden) still sound as vital, fresh, or vibrant as Judas Priest.

Dive is the kind of high quality release one expects from Hansen.

For its obvious melodic strengths, though, EP is a tease, slowly removing one layer at a time until its heart is revealed.

Pale Horses easily stands on its own as one of the year’s better albums. It entails almost all of the band’s greatest strengths, with the vigor that comes from a renewed focus on the post-hardcore stylings of yesteryear.

There's a depth to these tunes, one that comes not out of fast nights and wrecked relationships but the hindsight and experience of age; it's a well that, thankfully, seems to be getting deeper and deeper.

Right now I'm pretty content with digging The King of Limbs as I'd dig any new record: enjoying the personality that comes from the record itself and not the name behind it. And guess what? Radiohead makes good music. As if you had any doubt.

At fifty minutes long, and without a single climax, Arrivals becomes exhausting in its maturity, composure and homogeneity. And while it is a great album to chill, think and lose yourself in, it doesn’t seem to shed much warmth, much emotion.

Twenty-seven minutes is quite short, and the last couple of songs still feel undercooked compared to the slab of punk bangers offered by the first half. Despite this, the songs that bang do because they carry powerful punk riffs and relatable, Linkin Park-worship lyrics to yell.

At the end of the day, Purge is Godflesh doing Godflesh and doing a good job at it, but as far as how it stacks up against the rest of their discography, it’s far from a high point.

Saya Gray’s newfound streamlined approach comes at little cost to her oddball M.O.. She is remarkable for how she irons out what would once have been a lone idiosyncratic contour into the basis for a full track, stuffing verse/chorus structures with ideas so prickly that it’s a wonder to hear them sit so naturally in a conventional framework.

The End, So Far is lack-lustre at almost every turn.

We’ve come to expect more than inoffensive, lukewarm indie-pop from these guys. MGMT should save that for the thousands of other indie bands out there that all sound exactly like this, and go back to the stupidly fun and unpredictably bizarre music that most of us fell in love with.

Visions often feels suspended in the best way possible, both in time and space.

The band certainly doesn't sound one hundred percent confident (or even comfortable) moving into more accessible territory, but their fidgetiness results in one of the most intriguing listens of the year.

Lost Songs is brash and sincere, a caterwauling beast of chunky guitar chords and drums that never give you a chance to breathe, and in its best moments is as fiery and hot-blooded and rousing as anything off of those earlier albums fans are always pining for.

Jambinai have crafted a beast of an album with the perfect length to maintain its punch. Besides this, there are many idiosyncratic elements here which are hard to forget and easy to recognize once listened to. Though their music isn’t for everyone, once you get to the gist of it, it’s very rewarding.

The last thirty minutes or so of Ghosts VI: Locusts feels that little bit more cathartic and rewarding by the end of it. What starts off as simple, sombre piano notes eventually swells up to synthetic ambiences, and the rise of a mechanically unsettling apex for the album’s closing quarter. Both of these albums require time set aside to really benefit from their journeys, but it’s time well spent if you’re willing to accept it.

Not that his previous POP songs weren't POP, but never before has he sounded so confidently chart-ready in a chorus of his. Likewise, "Justify Your Life" features trip-hop beats, slabs of chillwave layers, and a reverb-full soundscape in an uncompromisingly banging way.

Sticking to the slowlane and sanding down jagged edges has done wonders, giving VOID much more space to breathe, its dripping atmosphere thereby safeguarded, and preserved yet further by excellent pacing and pristine production.

The album's best asset is how it ties together these disparate musical threads with the strength of its songwriting. Having found a stunning depth and emotional acuity on their last release, Reynolds broadens his focus to the world without ever losing the raw feeling which stood out in bold against The Spark's shimmering production.

What sets the album apart from what they’ve churned out the past 18 years is its ability to channel exactly what has always made them great, while injecting a renewed sense of genuine musical creativity that finally sticks it to the tired notion that all they needed to do was play around with a new gimmick.